Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt In recent years a number of small bodies have been found in ies have been found in orbits at the outer edge of the orbits of the gas giants and beyond. The existence of these were first suggested by the Irish gentleman-scientist Kenneth Exeter Edgeworth in 1949, and then independently by the Dutch-American astronomer Gerard Kuiper in 1951. They suggested a source was needed for the short-period comets which took into account they tended to be in or near the ecliptic plane, unlike the long-period comets. A reservoir in or near the ecliptic, and just outside the main planetary region was suggested for these. This reservoir also might account for the supply of some of the asteroidal-like satellites of the outer planets, and maybe also Pluto. The retrograde orbit of Triton and the strange orbit of Pluto (we know know it to be an even stranger double-planet system of course) argued for them to be "interlopers" originally from outside their current orbits, but the only known source of bodies like that - the asteroid belt - seemed unlikely. It

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